Creative Problem Solving?
Some of you may know what it is about. Yet some may not — time to do my share to change that!
When I started to promote my Biognosis Cards I was surprised how few people know about these tools and methods. When I talked about the trigger picture analysis, which is the basis for my new tool, people went: “Heavens, what is this woman talking about?” more often than not.
Yet whenever I get the chance to explain, it’s always nice to see that people are hooked quickly. And there is a reason to it.
Creative problem solving tools are very cool. And helpful.
Formulate. Generate. Evaluate. Implement. Loop.
Basically, the expression “creative problem solving” means that you use methods and tools to analyse your task, create ideas how to tackle it, prioritise the ideas and make a plan how to realise the most promising idea — including feedback loops.
It is Plan-Do-Check-Act
instead of the way more common and stressful Plan-Do-Firefight.
Tool Diversity
There are many different tools and methods to choose from — some you can use alone, some work better in groups, sometimes it’s about the topic or task you want to work on … and it’s also about your personal preference.
Although these methods have certain elements in common, you may find one method more helpful than others — and that’s perfectly okay.
You will find creative-intuitive methods to think anew and open-minded about a challenge, like brainstorming, brainwriting and the trigger picture analysis.
The systematic-analytical methods are perfect to work in a structured way on composing your solutions — like the morphologic box, or the attribute listing.
And there are analogy-based methods which deploy already existing knowledge. TRIZ — The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving — is such a method. It is based on patents. Biomimicry is another one — based on biological problem solving strategies.
A tip: If you are a complete newbie, get someone to help you with the first steps. A coach, a consultant, a facilitator. With time, you can choose and use the methods all by yourself. The training effect is impressive.
Been there, know that.
The thing with being an expert …
Sometimes it’s more of a hindrance for novel problem solving to be an expert. You are perfect in what you do, and that is why you might miss essential elements — because there is always (!) more to the story.
Have a look at Edward de Bono, and his philosophy of lateral thinking. He compared it to looking at a house. Imagine four people standing around a house, each one with a walkie-talkie, describing what he/she sees. All persons are perfectly right. But only if you put all the information together you get the whole picture — and that is part of creative problem solving.
Plus, we are often stuck because we know too much. We know how much a solution costs, that it does *not* work, that we’ve tried that before … and we tend to focus way too much on that, thinking that we are being pragmatic, sensible and efficient.
Sorry, but that’s … wrong.
It pays off to take the time to analyse a challenge in an open-minded, holistic way and generate many ideas to choose the best ones from. The better the basic idea, the better the final result. It’s just like in cooking — you will taste the cheap red wine in your sauce.
Additionally, it is way less expensive to invest time into creating sound solutions in the beginning then later, coping with production or marketing setbacks — I guess most of you experienced that? The firefighting thing?
Mix it up!
To become able to look at a challenge from different angles, you will have to use (most) heterogeneous groups — in speciality, in age, in gender, inviting R&D and sales, maybe even together with friendly customers.
It is difficult, yet essential to work together in a friendly, outcome-oriented way — and that’s where creative problem solving tools help, too.
They set clear rules for the work, and that helps a lot.
Plus, you get people on board with the ideas you generated and evaluated together. Phew, that saves quite a lot of time and money!
Again a tip: If you try to do that, and never did it before, get someone to help you with the first workshops. A neutral, unbiased moderator helps a lot in getting things going and becoming a productive work team.
Been there, know that, too.
Closing …
Simply try. There is not so much to it. If you are serious about it, get someone to help you with the first steps. Think of stretching. Quite easy to do, yet it is better when someone shows you how to do it right. And after a first “supervised” training — you’re ready to go on your own.
